Christ will Reign Forever

“I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.'” (1 Chronicles 17:13-14 ESV)

God is Sovereign. He is at no one’s beck and call. He is not subject to anyone. Men may indeed insist that God must follow their ideas of who He is and what He will or won’t do, but these things come from flawed Human reason. Men are arrogant creatures who have been trying to usurp God’s place on His throne since the fall in Genesis 3. Most people do not correctly understand God’s revelation of Himself that we find in the Bible, therefore, their doctrines are more man based than God centered.

One of the most important teachings about our Lord Jesus Christ that is missed by so many professing Christians and their leaders is that all of creation is really all about Him. He created it for Himself, that He would be glorified in it. After His resurrection just prior to His ascension He told His disciples and us something we would best not forget.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18 ESV)

He is Lord over all. His people are those whom are saved from the penalty for their sins by the grace of God, through His blood, which He shed for them. Because of His victory at the cross, our enemy, Satan, is bound. He cannot keep the elect from hearing the Gospel or believing in it. He has lost his authority that was given to him at the fall. He is subject to the will of God. Believers would do well to understand that our enemy cannot move against us without God’s permission. Even then, God will allow Him to affect us for our best and for His glory.

Believers serve a risen and victorious Saviour. He reign is forever. Therefore let us stop listening to those who are going all out to change Christianity from its proper God-centeredness into a man-centered counterfeit. Why? They are serving a different Jesus, one of their own making.

“I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.'” (1 Chronicles 17:13-14 ESV)

“Human reason objects to this passage. Considering itself ten times wiser than God, reason asks, “How can God give his eternal power to someone else? What would he be keeping for himself?” Now, it’s true that God has said, “I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). It would be especially difficult for God to give his glory to a mere human being, who was born in time and not eternal. But Christians do acknowledge that Jesus was a human being. He was Mary’s son and David’s descendant. He was born and he died.”

“Furthermore, people of other religions deduce that God can’t have a son because he doesn’t have a wife. Why do these people think they can contain the incomprehensible nature of God in the nutshell of their human reason? Shame on you, Satan, as well as all others who are students of blind foolish, miserable human reason. No one can fully understand these lofty matters, but God alone. All we know about them is what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us through Scripture.”

“Christians can answer these objections correctly, clearly, and accurately because they have insight from the New Testament. God’s Son has two natures in one inseparable person. He is one Christ, not two Christs. The Father gave Christ, his Son, eternal divinity, not in time, but from all eternity. The Father gave his divinity to Christ completely and fully, just as the Father himself possessed divinity from eternity. When he gave it to Christ, the Father didn’t lose any divinity himself. Rather, he gave to the Son the same power, which he still retains in eternity. There are not two deities. Rather, God the Father and Christ are united in one deity.” – Martin Luther

Human reason is not capable of understanding God fully. Our puny attempts at trying to explain the Holy Trinity always have holes and problems and come up far short. What we must do is simply believe our Lord, obey Him as we accept that He is reigning now and will do so forever.

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7 thoughts on “Christ will Reign Forever”

Obedience brings understanding and understanding brings obedience. To grow in knowledge without corresponding obedience is like reading a newspaper for leisure. To really know Him is to thirst to please Him.

The church has so little thirst for Jesus today, it makes us wonder who has really met the Lord Jesus. Not perfection, but some pursuit should accompany a true believing follower.

“Father,the hour has come.Glorify Your Son,that Your Son may glorify You,as You have given Him authority over all flesh,that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.And this is eternal life,that they may know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”John 17:1-3And as I write this out there is a Mormon story on T.V. about their beginnings and beliefs.They know not this God.But we have His Holy Spirit and His Holy Word that we may know Him. This is our desire while we walk this earth.Knowing that the search for the knowledge of God can lead us astray,let’s make sure we do it prayerfully and listen carefully to any nudges by the Holy Spirit when something doesn’t seem right even though it is a scholar who teaches it.Though I was in God’s Word and studying it,I didn’t listen to the Holy Spirit,but those more “knowledgeable”than myself(I didn’t trust that I was hearing rightly the Spirit of truth).I pray I listen this time and with the obedience,too.

It is all about Him being LORD! When a person truly believes Jesus is LORD, they will obey. They will by default, He will cause them to understand who He is:
Conversion from unbeleif to beleif. True beleivers will obey to the end, out of true love, not the shallow ‘love’ of acting loving to someone because they can get something from them…like the ‘Amercan Church’ acts towards their ‘jesus’ to get heaven. True love, as Jesus the Lord made a perfect example of is sacrificial love, a self denying love that surenders self for Him, rather than Him for self.
Thomas proclaimed: MY Lord and My God
John 20:27-29 (King James Version)

27Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.

29Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

When God allows someone to understand Him, they are BLESSED and for eternity!

Therefore, I urge you brothers through the compassions of God to present your bodies as living, holy sacrifices, well pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may discern the will of God, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. (Colossians 1:24-26 ESV)

The way of escape

"To believe that He will preserve us is, indeed, a means of preservation. God will certainly preserve us, and make a way of escape for us out of the temptation, should we fall. We are to pray for what God has already promised. Our requests are to be regulated by His promises and commands. Faith embraces the promises and so finds relief." - John Owen

How to be free from bondage to our flesh and temptation

"If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: 'God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled.' When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage." - John Owen

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About me

My name is Mike Ratliff. I am a δοῦλος (slave) of the Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν (Lord Jesus Christ.) I have been a Bible teacher since the late 1980's. I am currently learning Koine Greek, which I began in 1992 and will continue to do so until the Lord takes me home. I am Reformed in my theology because I recognize that God is Sovereign over all things. I write these posts as God directs. I am also part of the discernment team at Christian Research Network.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT

by G. D. Watson

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.

God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.

God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.